Gender-Based Vicarious Sensitivity to Disempowering Behavior in Organizations: Exploring an Expanded Concept of Hostile Working Environment

The purpose of this study was to explore evidence of gender-based vicarious sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations, expanding the concept of hostile working environment beyond the context of sexual harassment. Male and female graduate and undergraduate students viewed 10 video segments of Anita Hill's interview by U.S. senators during the October 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Clarence Thomas. Although no significant relationship was found between the personal attributes of age and ethnicity to perceptions of disempowering behavior, female participants reported seeing significantly more offensive behavior in the video segments than did male participants. The results are discussed in terms of greater female sensitivity to common forms of disempowering behavior in organizations, and having a disparate negative impact and systematically placing women at a disadvantage in today's workforce.     

Empirical Implications of Equilibrium Bidding in First-Price, Symmetric, Common Value Auctions

This paper studies federal auctions for wildcat leases on the Outer Continental Shelf from 1954 to 1970. These are leases where bidders privately acquire (at some cost) noisy, but equally informative, signals about the amount of oil and gas that may be present. We develop tests of rational and equilibrium bidding in a common values model that are implemented using data on bids and ex post values. We also use data on tract location and ex post values to test the comparative static prediction that bidders may bid less aggressively in common value auctions when they expect more competition. We find that bidders are aware of the "winner's curse" and their bidding is largely consistent with equilibrium.     

The impact of capacity expansion on the market value of the firm

This paper empirically investigates the impact of capacity expansion decisions on the market value of the firm. Event study methodology is used to estimate the abnormal change in stock prices around capacity expansion decision announcements. On the day of the announcement, the magnitude of the price change is abnormally high, evidenced by a significantly positive mean standardized square of the abnormal change (Beaver's U-statistic). We also analyze factors that we could affect the direction and magnitude of the abnormal change in the stock prices. We find that the change in price on the day of the announcement is positively and significantly related to the real growth rate of the industry, and negatively and significantly related to the variability of demand. A negative relationship between the price change and industry capacity utilization is also found which can have important implications for companies which follow the wait-and-see approach to capacity expansion decisions. We also find management ownership to be a significant predictor in explaining stock price changes around these announcements.     

Discrimination by Gender and Disability Status: Do Worker Perceptions Match Statistical Measures?

We explore whether perceptions of discrimination are related to ordinary statistical measures. The majority of disabled respondents report feeling some discrimination due to their disability, the majority of women feel some discrimination because of their gender, and a surprising number of men also report some discrimination. We do not find a strong link between perceptions of discrimination and measured discrimination perhaps because those who perceive discrimination feel that it occurs along other dimensions than pay. However, we do find a connection between whether a person feels his or her income is inadequate and measured discrimination for all groups studied.     

The Economic Performance of Immigrants: a Theory of Assortative Matching

The economic performance of U.S. immigrants differs substantially from that of natives in ways that pose difficulties for standard theories of migration. In particular, immigrants cluster geographically and are often employed together. Immigrant earnings differ by origin and time spent in the United States, even after controlling for education and experience. A large fraction of immigrants eventually returns home, even to low-wage countries. This article offers a theory of international migration based on assortative matching under imperfect information that accounts for a broad range of these empirical regularities.     

Feints

In both economic and military situations, agents may try to mislead rivals about their true types or plans, whatever they may be. We consider a simple model in which one player attacks and the other player defends. We show that such environments have two types of possible equilibrium behavior, depending upon the signaling technology. If the signal is not very revealing about the attacker's plans, then the attacker always invests more resources in attack than in misdirection. If the technology is revealing, then the attacker does not always feint, but when he feints, he invests more than half of his resources into misdirection. Comparative statics also depend on whether the technology is revealing.

" Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy, if possible ."

— General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson     

Cross-country variation in educational attainment: structural change or within-industry skill upgrading?

Educational attainment varies greatly across countries and within countries over time. This paper asks whether the variation in education is primarily due to industry composition or to within-industry skill intensities. The main finding is that within-industry variation accounts for at least two-thirds of the cross-country and the time-series variation in educational attainment. The within-industry education gaps are broadly consistent with a model of industry neutral cross-country differences in skilled labor productivity. These results suggest that theories of educational development should focus on skill upgrading within industries rather than structural change.     

Discussion of “The financial reporting of fair value based on managerial inputs versus market inputs: evidence from mortgage servicing rights”

Contrary to the guidance provided by regulators and industry associations suggesting that mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) be recorded as Level 3 assets, Altamuro and Zhang identify that 25 % of banks classify them as Level 2 assets. This variation in the asset classification of a single asset type provides a unique setting to examine the role of inputs in the fair value measurement process. Altamuro and Zhang find that the fair value of MSRs based on managerial inputs (Level 3) better reflects the economics of the underlying assets than the fair value of MSRs based on market inputs (Level 2). This discussion examines the institutional features of the MSR market, particularly the market concentration and the illiquidity of the market, that are important when considering this result. The discussion also raises a number of questions about the inputs used in the fair value process and calls for further research on this topic.     

Contestability and creative destruction: Two approaches to monopoly

The theory of contestability ’attempts to base a model of economic efficiency on oligopolistic markets, thereby justifying adoption of laissez-faire policies in the absence of atomistic competition. The analysis is similar to Schumpeter’s condemnation of government intervention in the theory of creative destruction: both theories claim that superior economic performance is associated with concentrated rather than competitive market structures. Yet in many respects the contestability analysis is less convincing than Schumpeter’s. Whereas Schumpeter admitted the existence of short rum profits and restrictive strategies, arguing that these inefficiencies, are outweighed in the long run, the theory of contestable markets is based on short run efficiency and cannot accommodate evidence of excess profits nor many of the existing models of oligopolistic strategies, including collusion and predatory pricing. Furthermore, the theory lacks a logical explanation of investment, by entrants and convincing empirical support for its claim that concentrated markets maximize consumer welfare.     

Statistical Inference,Learning and Models in Big Data

The need for new methods to deal with big data is a common theme in most scientific fields, although its definition tends to vary with the context. Statistical ideas are an essential part of this, and as a partial response, a thematic program on statistical inference, learning and models in big data was held in 2015 in Canada, under the general direction of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute, with major funding from, and most activities located at, the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. This paper gives an overview of the topics covered, describing challenges and strategies that seem common to many different areas of application and including some examples of applications to make these challenges and strategies more concrete.